Diane Arbus once said: "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."
After the training service, a Detective Owen Kim was escorting the agents to a car where he would drive them to the airport.
"You know, we really can get ourselves to the airport," Sonic told Kim.
"I didn't invite the FBI here to let them make their own way around town," Kim told him.
"We really appreciate it," Tails said.
"I can't thank you guys enough for conducting the seminar."
"Well, don't hesitate to call if there's anything we can help with," Sonic said, then Kim's phone started ringing when they got to the car.
"Kim here," Kim said in the phone. "Great. Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I drop the FBI agents at L.A.X."
"Everything all right?" Sonic asked after he hung up.
"Double murder at a Hollywood bungalow. A celebrity. Young movie star Natalie Ryan and her fiancé apparently shot to death. It's gonna be a major pain in the ass. You guys care to take a quick look before I drive you to the airport? It's on the way."
"Absolutely."
They got in the car and drove to the crime scene.
The three got to the scene where CSU was already processing the area.
"No sign of forced entry," Tails noted when they walked through the front door.
"Same weapon," Sonic said seeing the bodies.
"The girl was shot execution style. Once in the head. The male thee times in the torso."
"So you have two different MOs."
"We have an image on the video surveillance camera," Kim told them. "Looks like a messenger of some kind wearing a motorcycle helmet. He's unidentifiable."
"There's no sign of struggle between the girl and the Unsub from the door to the couch," Tails noted. "He most likely forced her at gunpoint."
"He told her to trust him," Sonic concluded. "'Do what I say. I won't hurt you.'"
"Fatal mistake," Kim commented.
"He asked her to sit on the couch and then shot her in the head," Tails finished Sonic's conclusion.
"The fiancé wasn't expected," Sonic said. "His killing's messiest. It's less controlled. It's less organized. What do you think?"
"I've had a couple other cases recently," Kim told him. "Past few months. Same type of weapon, .22 caliber handgun. Both shot in the head. The first was an established film producer, Wally Melman. And the second was Chloe Harris, Another young actress, but not as well known as Natalie here."
"Any forensic evidence?" Tails asked Kim.
"No. And the guys have been going through this place all morning and haven't come up with anything.,
"So he clearly knows how to cover his tracks," Sonic said.
"In like a professional hit man?"
"Maybe."
"Sonic, there are people actually taking photographs of us from the next yard," Tails said looking out the window.
"Welcome to LA," Kim told him.
".22s are small but efficient. They bounce around inside a person like a pinball," Sonic said.
"Preferred weapon of the mafia," Tails added. "You know, there's no obvious sexual component to these crimes which is usually the case with serial murders."
"So are are thinking this is a serial killer?" Kim asked them.
"Well, it's certainly a series of murders," Sonic replied. "We don't know enough yet to call them serial."
"Would you consider hanging out in LA a little while, let me lean on your expertise until we do figure out what we've got?"
"Yeah. Just cancel our flights. We'll have the rest of our team out here ASAP."
The rest of the BAU was on the jet headed to LA, California.
"First two victims: Wally Melman and Chloe Harris. Both killed in public places," Knuckles said starting off with victimology.
"Chloe was killed while walking her dog on the beach in Santa Monica which she did every morning. And Wally was killed outside of a massage parlour," BJ said reading the case file."
"In Culver City.
"Which he went to every Tuesday," Fiona added.
"Well, if he knows their schedules, maybe that means he follows his victims for a while."
"And not a single witness," Shadow said. So we know this Unsub can blend in. Regardless of the location, he has the ability to hide in plain sight."
"He's meticulous," Fiona said.
"The media's calling Natalie Ryan's murder the biggest celebrity homicide since Sharon Tate," BJ told them. "What does that mean for us?"
"That everybody will be watching," Shadow answered.
The team got to the police station, they all gathered in Kim's office where they told him what they were dealing with.
"This guy is an assassin?" Kim asked them.
"When you look at the victimolgy, there's no obvious links," Knuckles told him. "All the kills are clean except in the instance of the last victim, Jeremy Collins."
"There's absolutely no evidence left at the crime scene," Fiona said. "There's no DNA, no manifestation of psycho-sexual release and there's no detectable signature of any kind."
"Remember, our profiles are formulated not just by what's present at the scene, but also what's absent," Sonic reminded Kim.
"From all the evidence that we've gathered, we believe that you're looking for a type-4 assassin."
"Type 4?" Kim asked.
"Type one's are political assassins, like John Wilkes Booth. Type two's are egocentrics looking for simple recognition," Tails explained the first two.
"Type three's are psychopaths, cold-blooded killers who leave far messier scenes. And type four, our Unsub, suffers from a major mental disorder and is frequently delusional," Shadow said explaining the last two.
"The closer we come to figuring out that delusion, the closer we'll get to finding the Unsub."
"What's he going to be doing until we do?" Kim asked them.
"Finding other victims," Sonic replied. Then a knock came to the door, a blue and yellow chimp, wearing a nice casual suit, was at the door.
"Excuse me. Hi. Is there a Detective Kim here?" The chimp asked the group.
"Right here," Kim said pointing himself out.
"You're heading the investigation into the Natalie Ryan murder?"
"Yes."
"Um. My-I have a client. She's, uh, is there another place we can be private?"
"We're all working this murder."
"Well, um, she received a note, my client did, and she freaked out. I told her not to worry about it."
"Where is the note?" Knuckles asked the man, he handed Knuckles the note: it was on a magazine and in red marker it said 'YOU OWE ME'.
"Where's your client?" Shadow asked the man.
"She's waiting in the other room," the man replied.
"Tails, let's go," Knuckles told Tails. The two agents went to the other room, when they got there Tails recognized the client right away.
"Abby. Hi," the fox said surprised and a bit happy.
Next the team took Abby to a bullpen desk to talk to her.
"How well did you know Natalie Ryan?" Shadow asked Abby.
"We spoke when we saw each other in public, but we were never friends," the bird replied.
"How about Wally Melman?
"What?"
"Wally Melman. He's a producer who was killed a couple months ago," Fiona told her.
"The paper said that was a robbery."
"The paper was wrong," Sonic informed her.
"Did you know him?" Shadow asked her.
"We met a few times about a project, but I didn't get the part," Abby said. "They went a different way."
"Which way?" Fiona asked.
"He cast, um, another act," then she realized something. "Oh, my goodness."
"What is it?" Tails asked her.
"He cast Natalie Ryan," Abby's manager, Michael Ryer, told him.
"'You owe me,'" Knuckles said relaying the note.
"I guess that's one way to ice out the competition," Fiona commented. They looked at Ryer thinking for a moment that he was the stalker.
"Don't look at me," Ryer told them. "I brought her to the police station."
"Have you ever had a sense that someone is watching you, following you?" Sonic asked Abby.
"From the moment I get to work, I have hair and make-up and wardrobe people, producers writers, my agent, my manager, publicist. Not to mention the photographers," Abby told them.
"It's part of the life," Ryer added.
"Anything seem out of the ordinary? Happens on a regular basis or semi-regular basis?" Sonic asked her.
"What do you mean?" Abby didn't understand.
"Repetitive phone, calls gifts left anonymously," Tails told her.
"I receive flowers on the seventh of each month. They just appear in my trailer. Never a note. Just a plain glass bowl. Red anemones. My favourite."
"And you don't want to know who they're from?" Fiona asked her.
"Celebrities get anonymous gifts all the time," Ryer told them. "She has fans, you know."
"You remember meeting anyone on the seventh day of the month? Or in July, the seventh month of the year?" Sonic asked her.
"No," Abby answered.
"Wally Melman was a producer who considered hiring you, but didn't. And Natalie was a rival," Shadow said.
"And Chloe Harris? She looks a lot like you, don't you think?" Fiona asked her showing Chloe's picture, she was a blue jay too.
"Who?" Abby asked.
"A potential rival."
"She was murdered, too," Shadow told her.
"So all these people are being killed because of me?" Abby asked them, she was beginning to worry.
"It's possible."
"I'm sorry, I can't. I- I have to go," a scared Abby got up from her seat and left the station, Tails followed her outside.
"Lila!" He called to her; he caught up to her.
"What's happening, Miles?" Abby asked him scared.
"It's still rather speculative, but it appears there's a delusional assassin who's killing people to help further your career. It probably started as a stalker. An erotomanic stalker. There's a psychopathology of the evolution of these types of stalkers. And the fact that he's contacting you indicates that he believes you owe him something. This model frequently concludes itself to one of two possibilities: either the stalker will kill himself, or he'll kill the object of his affection."
Great Tails, that really calmed her down...